CLEARING UP CONFUSIONS – BY DR. GUY FITCH LYTLE III

I. Unity and Schism

At the center of much that is being said and written today in ECUSA is the issue (for some, the supreme virtue) of “unity” and its perceived opposite, the charge of “division” or “schism”. We all agree that it would be better if we could rightly understand, agree, and embody what God would have us rightly understand, believe, and do; but the fact is, we don’t! Why not? That is the heart of the problem. I will concede that most of the discussants, as wrong as I think some of them are, sincerely believe what they say they believe. But I don’t think we get very far by trying to fix the blame for our current divisions on one group or the other.

First, examples of rhetorical insult in lieu of theological insight have occurred (probably since Eden) and will recur (until Armageddon). We traditionalist Christians greatly tire of and become resentfully hardened by the continuous cry of “schism” from those who cannot abide or answer our positions. I’m sure others with different positions sometimes feel something similar. So how should we think about “unity” and “schism”?

On one frequently heard subject, there are those who say, “Differences about sexuality should not divide the Episcopal Church,” or “Why now? Surely, this isn’t as big an issue as x or y or z”, and part of me understands that perspective. But to it might be responded: in one important sense, the Reformation began over indulgences. Surely, indulgences were not a significant enough issue to split Western Christendom. That division has now gone on for some 500 years. It has caused many wars, inquisitions, and human bonfires. But, others might say, the Reformation clearly was not about indulgences or some other minor aspect of sacramental theology. It was about sola scriptura, sola gratia, a wholly new truth that offered an essential and accurate soteriology and polity to a people of God long chained in Roman bondage. (To Luther and his successors, this new truth was, of course, a newly recovered old truth.) Are the issues of the summer and autumn of 2003 analogous to the traveling indulgence market of 1516? Do we have in both cases classic examples of straws and camels’ backs?

To label an opponent as “schismatic,” as with the constant misuse of “homophobic” and “fundamentalist,” is insulting and meant to stop all debate in its tracks. To call the traditionalist, orthodox position “schismatic” is as absurd as calling the Catholic Fathers at Nicaea “schismatic” for opposing the Arian bishops’ innovations, or Protestants calling Roman Catholics “schismatic” in 1520. The traditionalist, orthodox view is in accord with:

The vast majority of the Anglican Communion (and almost certainly of the ECUSA as well): probably more than 60,000,000 of the world’s 75,000,000 Anglicans,

The Roman Catholic Church (1.7 billion Christians),

The Orthodox Churches (400 million Christians),

The Southern Baptists and other burgeoning Evangelical and Pentecostal churches around the world (hard to be precise, but multi-millions).

To their opinion, self-identified “progressive” Christians can claim the accord of the Metropolitan Community Church, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the rapidly declining United Church of Christ, etc. It is not at all clear that any more of the tiny U.S. Mainline Protestant denominations will follow ECUSA; but even so, we would be counting negligible numbers.

The very notion that traditionalist Anglicans/Episcopalians are causing schism is nonsensical. Not only is it the innovators who are triggering division as they preach a new doctrine, discover a new morality, and create new authorities; but, more importantly, the division is simply a fact. There is no unity, no matter how much some of our bishops, clergy, and laity want to pretend that things remain the same or will soon “get back to normal.” A bishop, whom I like personally, recently urged his diocese to “get over this, and get on with it”—“it” presumably being his concept of the mission of the Church. Well, okay. But the “mission of the Church” has always involved coherent, authoritative, defensible theology, ecclesiology, and moral life. If that is NOT part of the mission of the Church, then to what are we evangelizing? What specifically about the Episcopal Church can be said to be holy, Catholic or apostolic? Why don’t we just become a liberal consciousness-raising club with bishops who hold good same-sex mixers and committees who do occasional social work? Left-wing politicians, good fellowship, and doing charitable works is not all the Lord and the Apostles had in mind with the Crucifixion, Resurrection, Great Commission, and Pentecost. Of course, Our Lord preached, “If you love me, feed my sheep” (John 21:18). But he also said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). The two pillars stand together.

The Episcopal Church/Anglican Communion (technically I was confirmed into the Church of England) has been my spiritual/ecclesial home for more than forty years. I have loved, and still love, its ethos; its two millennia witness to the Christian faith. I pray with all the fervor I can muster that an honest, viable, and most of all faithful, solution will emerge from the Archbishop’s Commission and from the plethora of gifted, inspired, committed minds and hearts now praying and thinking toward that solution.

The theologian and church historian in me must insist, however, that “causing schism” is so much in the eye of the accuser that it is, at least in this case, linguistically meaningless since it is causally impossible to determine. Historically, “schism” often just is. Nicaea, or better Chalcedon, has never been “settled” within Christendom. It just slowly took shape, and then one day Christianity recognized it had happened. By 1053, the East-West division was a “done reality,” and it has never been resolved between Rome and the Orthodox. Historians still make careers arguing about how, and even when, the Reformation began; but, for good or ill, it is still an on-going reality. And there are many other smaller, but significant, intra- and inter-denominational divisions. All such divisions are in some ways regrettable and harmful to our credibility and witness to those of other faiths and to the world at large. Ecumenical dialogues (a growing part of Christianity since the 17th century) are important theological processes. But, in a sinful world, unity is an eschatological hope.

And what is unity? Jesus indeed wished for unity among his followers (something even He couldn’t achieve with the twelve), but unity as “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). That seems to me to be a dogma, more than some soft tolerance. It bears doctrinal—yea, again, dogmatic—content. Theology, authority, obedience, and their implications, matter—especially when we talk about unity. It is not just “process”, not just being nice to each other.

II. Cultural Differences & Local Options

It has been suggested that one way of saving the “unity” of the Episcopal Church, at least in the short run, is to follow the policy of so-called “local-option”. “Provincial autonomy” is built into the polity of the Anglican Communion; and, in another sense, the USA is certainly very different in so many ways from Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, various Southeast Asian countries, etc. And despite Interstate 95, South Carolina is a pretty long way from New Hampshire; does what happens in the latter really affect the former? Is your local parish substantially different today than it was before August 5th or November 2nd?

A lot of questions jostle in that paragraph, questions that I can imagine St. Paul and his co-workers pondering as they considered the different issues facing the nascent Christians in Corinth, Thessalonica, Galatia, Philippi, Rome, Ephesus, et al. What did any of these communities have to do with each other? How quickly we abandon even the ideal of “one Body.”

Some of those who were given a lot of press as ECUSA leaders (I think of Jack Spong, Martin Smith, and many others) brought infamy on our church by their comments after the 1998 Lambeth Conference. They tried to cast intra-Anglican division, especially about the issue of homosexuality, as one between an educated, indeed civilized, progressive, prophetic West, and an ignorant, indeed uncivilized, backward, morally-retrograde South. This unveiled racism is also factually unsupported: there are far more earned theology Ph.D.s among the “global South” traditionalist bishops than among their Western counterparts (not that Ph.D.s confer or connote virtue).

In a disturbing way, especially to one who grew up in segregated Alabama in the 1950s, the “local option” solution to maintaining the unity of ECUSA, heavily endorsed by liberals (until they can impose their policy universally by fiat) has all-too-resonant echoes to the similarly-argued “local option” policies of “state’s rights” in George Wallace’s Alabama, Ross Barnett’s Mississippi, and Lester Maddox’s Georgia. What would/did a strong, morally heroic Presiding Bishop like John Hines, or indeed General Convention itself, say to that situation?

III. Fundamentalists

On another issue, aren’t those who are defending a close reading of the Bible about sexuality being “fundamentalists”? And Anglicans are not fundamentalists. Don’t we have our own way of interpreting the Bible?

Biblical interpretation is an immensely demanding scholarly field, and one of great importance. I cannot here insert a whole tract on Biblical interpretation. Others can and have done that much better than I can; but I will mention a few points relevant to my thinking.

Traditionalists are certainly being accused widely of being “fundamentalists” for accepting the divine revelation as normative. This accusation shows the historical and exegetical ignorance or duplicity of their critics. Those who call us “fundamentalists” often wrap themselves in some vague “Anglican way” of reading the Bible—again, seemingly wholly ignorant of the main Anglican tradition of valuing the authority of Scripture: from Colet and Erasmus through Cranmer, Hooker, the Caroline Divines, the Wesleys, the Evangelical and Catholic Revivals, Westcott, Hort, and Caird, to N. T. Wright in our own day. Who among that tradition would read the Bible the way they do and supply the interpretations they propose? Who, in fact, are the Anglicans in today’s debate?

A fundamental distinction has been made, since the patristic and medieval periods, between “literal”, “allegorical”, “moral,” and other possible modes of interpretation. “Inerrant” was not even a possible category until fairly modern times. “Literal”, which goes back before St. Augustine, has simply meant that the Bible’s words mean what they say as their primary interpretation. Of course, we need to study the Bible (ordination vows require it), not just memorize “proof texts” or quote out of context. Those of us who read the Bible carefully know that study and interpretation have been fundamental duties from the Old Testament on. Take that profoundly important, prophetic interpretive passage in Nehemiah (8:2–8):

“Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly … He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law… And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen,’ lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground … the Levites helped the people to understand the law… So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”

The Holy Scriptures are to be read in community, heard, taught, interpreted, and lived. If that is “fundamentalism,” then Jews and Christians (including Anglican Christians) have always been “fundamentalists.”

There is all the difference in the world between “literal” and “inerrant.” In the process of translation, basic teachings of the Scriptures are re-expressed in words that may have different cultural nuances. Both linguistic complexities and historical contexts need explaining, so we can understand ancient meaning and see how it might inform our thinking now. One current tactic is to make the Bible “ridiculous” by citing one isolated, clearly human, historical, contextual suggestion, as if God or Christians mean it to be universally normative, while ignoring the plain sense of the theme throughout the whole of the Bible (this is why Robert Gagnon so expertly demolishes many facile rhetorical attempts at rewriting the Scriptures. See http://www.robgagnon.net ). Others obsess over “texts of terror,” rejecting whatever the words might really be trying to express. Or, a very wide-spread tactic, many today are busy scouring the Bible for what it doesn’t explicitly forbid, so they can see what they can “get away with.”

I have been drawn to Biblical exegesis since I was what must have been an annoyingly precocious child. The long Baptist sermons I still remember were the month (or season) long series, galloping through one book or another. As simple as it now seems in retrospect, my vocation was essentially confirmed one afternoon in my freshman year at Princeton when a term-paper assignment led me to the Interpreter’s Bible for the first time, and I read (very unusually for me) straight through dinnertime. Had I been more linguistically gifted (or perhaps more hard-working) in languages, I am quite certain I would be a Biblical scholar and professor today. So I don’t take the work of anyone (of any faith tradition, or none) who has devoted his or her life to interpreting the Bible lightly or dismiss any of their arguments easily.

Among the many, many other Biblical theologians I read (and use) regularly, Walter Brueggemann and David Ford, seem to me to have brought particularly convincing analyses and creative imaginations to their readings of the relevance of the Bible for us today. I do not always agree with either of them, but agreement is not prerequisite for respect (or even love—hence the survival of almost any marriage). Brueggemann once wrote about the spiritual paralysis caused by dualism in religions, one part of which “yields a religion of harsh conformity which crushes” and the other part which “yields… a religion of indulgent self-interest that harbors selfishness”. (Interpretation and Obedience: From Faithful Reading to Faithful Living, Minneapolis, 1991, p.23) This dichotomy has shaped and continues to shape my hermeneutic of most religious conflict ever since. The solution to the impasse that both Brueggemann and Ford (the Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge and an Anglican priest) suggest, in somewhat different ways, is a turn toward interpretations of the Bible based on faith-centered imaginations, both obedient and creative. Right now, sadly, most of us in the ECUSA debates seem to lack both qualities. Finding fruitful obedience and faithful creativity in the task of bishops, theologians, priests, and all other baptized Christians; not defeating opponents, not claiming victories, but accepting Christ’s Grace and the Bible’s revealed pattern of how to live into God’s Kingdom.

Let me end this section with the most basic of pleas: we must get beyond hurling verbal insults as if they were theological doctrine. That seems, but is more complicated than it seems, a fairly basic requirement for those who would call us to engage in “civil discourse and reconciliation.”

IV. Prophecy

Another rhetorical device overused by the “progressives” is to claim the prophetic mantle and charge traditionalists with somehow being against prophecy and its fruits. Aren’t Christians always called by God to be “prophetic”, to be against the sinful status quo, to be against oppression and injustice in all forms, and for a glorious future—the coming, utopian reign of God? Biblical prophecy is another very complex subject, and scholars have produced a huge body of literature about it. Let me highlight several points that seem often overlooked in today’s liberal perspective.

We seem to have lost the sense of what prophecy very often meant to the people of God in ancient Israel as revealed in the Bible. First, those called by God to be prophets seldom eagerly embraced that vocation. In this respect today’s self-proclaimed prophets bear little resemblance to our prophetic forbears. Old Testament prophets proclaimed the coming of the Messiah and the coming of His Kingdom of true justice and peace of which we will joyfully be a part. But the overwhelming tone and content of the Old Testament prophets’ messages, the path they directed God’s Covenanted Chosen Ones to follow to reach that Kingdom, most often recalled the people of Israel to their previously revealed right-relationship with God. Again and again the Israelites abandoned that right relationship and the structure of life God had established for them. The prophets did not rejoice that God was “doing a new thing in their day.” No, the prophets pointed out, usually rather sharply, how the people had gone astray, following the devices and desires of their own hearts, or how they had turned to more attractive and less demanding false idols. The only hope for the people of God was to repent and return to the Lord, to affect true metanoia and follow the ways He had revealed in His Laws.

Has God changed? No! Rather, “prophecy,” as it is used rhetorically today, has become the tool which some now brandish hegemonically against those who are still trying to be the people of God. Maybe we need to proclaim with joy that God is “doing an old thing” and recalling us to that blessed right-relationship, now confirmed in Jesus the Christ. While this is by no means the whole interpretation of Biblical prophecy, I believe it is a perspective that is largely missing from current discussion.

V. Paradigms

What seems to underlie these two conflicting views of prophecy (and so much else in the current disputes) is that there are at least two major, conflicting ways of interpreting our world right now (what philosophers, historians, and sociologists call “paradigms”), and that these paradigms are largely incompatible. Is that the problem?

Basically, yes. The narcissism of most so-called “post-modernist interpretation”, beyond its long known and obvious teachings that interpretation occurs in contexts (not all of which are intellectually or otherwise equal), is largely the justification of aggressive agendas, self-aggrandizing and self-pleading attempts to co-opt revealed truths for other, all-too-sinfully-human, purposes. If Christian Truth is not knowable and more compelling than human paradigms, if it does not transcend our own limited visions, then why bother? That is obviously the view from within my paradigm, as will become clear below. But it does not come from an ignorance of the secularist, post-modern paradigm (as Ricoeur and others would understand), but from my considered rejection of its claims.

What is, I think, self-evident is that there are, in essence, two powerful, coherent paradigms effective structurally in our culture today: One is what some might call the “classic Christian” paradigm (what I call elsewhere the “Transcendent anti-paradigm”), based on the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, Church Traditions (including Roman Catholic, Orthodox, classic Protestant, Anglican, and many other varieties), and a fairly generally agreed sense of what it means to be a Christian (though certainly with some internal disagreements about theology and the meanings of symbols and rituals).

The other is a secular, liberationist, modernist/post-modernist, scientist, hedonist paradigm, one that can be said to have been developing in western society and culture since the 18th century (and in some ways since the Renaissance), greatly accelerating its characteristics in the latter half of the 20th century.

Traditionalists, though not unaffected by the second paradigm, are fairly well ensconced in the first and continue to try to articulate its ideas, values, and behavior in a way that is consistent with its foundations and traditions; still, they/we believe, relevant to the current age, and explicitly hostile to most of the latter paradigm. The second paradigm is also fully articulated by a cultural, academic, and media/advertising elite, people who largely control the artistic, informational, and in many ways the commerce levers of our external lives. Each paradigm operates in fundamental and conscious opposition to the other.

Those who identify themselves as “liberal” or “progressive” Christians are often somewhat betwixt and between. They want, for whatever—often worthy and noble—reasons, to hold onto some traits of the traditional Judeo-Christian paradigm, to co-opt and redefine its texts, traditions, and institutions, to baptize the secularist, post-modern paradigm and call it “Christian.” To a Southerner steeped in the bizarre images and fervid religious imaginations that produced and inhabit the world that is Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, with its repellant, compelling central character Haze Motes, we are indeed in a place of “the Church of Christ without Christ.” Traditional Christians are not willing any longer passively to cede to holders of the “progressivist” paradigm the right to the Christian identity without serious qualifications or metanoia.

Some, very wrong-headedly I think, try to claim such a mental and behavioral hybrid as “Anglican,” since they seem to believe “Anglicanism” is a wide, seemingly infinite, diversity of opinion and action in which there are no boundaries to the “left” and little recognition of the possible validity of anything that the secular paradigmists find disagreeable to the “right.” (I use these “directional signals reluctantly as “shorthand” in an already overlong note.) No earlier Anglican, nor the great majority of Anglicans today, would recognize such a claim. The via media, or Newman’s “third way,” is simply not that elastic.

So, and this is the heart of the matter for me, revisionists/post-modernists are faced with a choice, a classic choice repeatedly posed in the Bible and in Christian history. They can accept the secularist paradigm, try to inject some mostly incompatible Christianity, and live their lives accordingly. Perhaps they can justify this change fully to themselves. God still loves them; Christ died for their sins because of His inestimable love. But it is, I think, utterly delusional, just wrong, to insist on labeling their resulting lifeform “Christian,” and “evangelizing” others to follow their way. In Jesus the Incarnate Christ, God has shown us “the way, the truth, and the life” and has called us, and recalled us time and again, to that saving way, that way to live in true freedom, to the utter, liberating joy to be Christ’s Holy Body and Church. Whatever sociobiology and behaviorist psychology may tell us, we have been endowed with sufficient free will to make the choice. That choice is what this conflict is all about!

What is needed is to accept the Grace that will allow one to understand that this is where the joy will be found, and then to accept that further Grace which is the will to respond to that understanding.

This discussion has just scratched the surface of a few topics. Perhaps you have thought all these thoughts, and many more, and are way beyond them. Actually, I hope you are. Let’s keep at it. Circulate the results. God gave us minds to think, and thoughts can often be the mind at prayer. We must not neglect to pray in all ways, alone and in community. We will not solve these problems in prayer’s absence.

One final note: Although this essay clearly was not intended, in any way, to be an essay in systematic theology, several colleagues who have seen it in draft have asked me for a theological comment on the Cambridge “Radical Orthodoxy” group of theologians, and indeed Archbishop Williams himself, who have been dealing with aspects of post-modernism and Christianity, and with this paradigm conflict; others have asked how “Scripture, Tradition, and Reason”—plus the misleading category of “Experience”—fit together and deal with our present conflicts. An essay now in draft form will soon try to shed some light on these questions.

May God bless us all,

These words are mine alone, and are not published with any additional authority or representation.

The Rev’d Guy Fitch Lytle III, Ph.D., D.D.

Dr. Lytle is an Episcopal priest. He holds a Ph.D. in Church History. His areas of specialization are the history of Anglicanism and the theology of priesthood.